CLIntro1123

 Hi I am Carmen and I also go by Mindy to my family members. I am starting this blog because I am noticing some alarming trends about gaining weight, and aging. I am going to share my struggle with this very issue and my motivation in doing so is to help you understand what is going on with our food, the importance of exercise, and to adopt a healthy lifestyle for you to live a better hopefully longer life.

Ever since I can remember I have been chunky, thick, and called gordita.  As a kid growing up in the 80s I was the token fat girl and we were few and far between. I was also constantly compared by family members to my slim sister to boot. I can remember turning to food when my mother died it was my coping mechanism and the only thing that connected me to my dad. My dad was a provider but that was it for me. I am the middle child of 11 children that I know of, and I had daddy issues that I have worked through. My dad could have done better, it is not my place to judge him. In my healing process I have forgiven him, and have a better insights about why I had food issues.

As I grew up my food issues faded until high school where I wanted to be slim and had a friend that slimmed down by not eating that worked for me until I got into the Army where I was taught to eat three solid meals a day, and the importance of exercise. I bulked up & became fit thick which caused me to never make the Army's weight standards weighing 120 pounds. For the first time in my life I never cared about what I ate because it was so simple and don't care what anyone says mess hall food is amazing. I got to try so many scratch made meals that I never had before.

After the army, I moved back to Texas to go to school I was still fit and taught aerobics but was a starving student. Then I met Craig and we were both struggling students I lost 20 pounds and got pregnant and lost even more weight due to morning sickness and stress. Craig and I got married shortly after the birth of our daughter but that happiness was short lived due to multiple tragic events that shook my family to the core for the next decade. During that decade I got my education and started my IT career and Craig went nursing school. We bought our first house and we found out we were pregnant. I started the pregnancy at 117 pounds and lost a little bit of weight because I was sick for the first couple of months but I blew up to 153 pounds. I ended up having an emergency c section at age 36, and it was horrible. It was worth it for our second daughter.

At this point in my life I had postpartum, stress of being on one income, and starting life in our new home plus I had never had a surgery so I was also recovering from that. Earlier I mentioned that Craig was in nursing school and his amazing classmates brought us meals. It took me a while but I did get the weight down to about 135 where I was able to maintain this by working out and eating reasonably healthy. I was going on 47 when covid hit we have a home gym and I started off strong thinking  I could work out at home at the same level that I had at the gym. I ended up getting a job that allowed me to work from home and that is when I blew up to over 155 pounds and this impacted me more than I can admit.

I had a coworker that did intermittent fasting, and she mentioned it to me because that helped relieve some of her menopause symptoms. As I started my own research on this subject, keto kept coming up so I wanted to learn more and discovered that a recent friend lost 120 pounds doing keto for 2 years.  So on labor day of this year I started intermittent fasting and keto. In my next blog I am going to go into great detail about that so stay tuned, but I wanted to give you my stats. I started this journey with a BMI at 28 and 155 pounds. I am now at a BMI at 25 and 129 pounds at 49 years of age.